To Live and Let Go
by Tris Prior16
Summary: There have been no signs of life in Tris other than the slow drumming of her heart and the ever so spontaneous pulse in her wrist and neck. Nonetheless, I've visited her every day for the past three days, waiting for her to wake up.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1:**

**Tris' POV:**

**A/N: Hello! Umm... Well, here's a new story! I was on Google+ and on the community "Fanfiction For Teen Novels" someone requested this, so here it is. Thanks for the idea!**

**DISCLAIMER: I own absolutely nothing besides the parts I included and the clothes on my back.**

Bent at the waist, I shove my shoulder into the double doors, and they squeak across the floor as their seal breaks. I breathe clean air and stand up straighter. I am there, I am _there_.

But I am not alone.

"Don't move," David says, raising his gun. "Hello, Tris."

I freeze where I am, his gun trained on me.

"How did you inoculate yourself against the death serum?" he asks tersely.

I blink at him, still dazed.

"I didn't," I say.

"Don't be stupid," David says. "You can't survive the death serum without inoculation, and I'm the only person in the compound who possesses that substance."

I don't say anything. I'm not lying, but of course not one would believe me. Just the fact that I'm standing upright is impossible, nothing more.

"I suppose it no longer matters," he says. "We're here now."

"What… what are you doing here?" I say, shaking my head, trying to make sense of everything.

David says, "I knew something was going on. You've been running around with genetically damaged people all week, Tris, did you think I wouldn't notice?"

Honestly, I didn't care. But, now that I'm being held at gunpoint by the person I was supposed to distract from all of our plans, I don't think there's a choice. I can't just quit now.

The people in this compound see me as someone who makes sacrifices for the greater good. A hero. However, our perspectives are different. I have plans, he has plans.

"Wh…" I trail off, not knowing what to say.

"Your friend Cara was caught trying to manipulate the lights, but she very wisely knocked herself out before she could tell us anything. So I came here."

"Alone?" I muse. "Not very smart, huh?"

"I may be in a wheel chair, but I have death serum resistance and a weapon. There is no way you can steal four viruses while I have you at gunpoint. I'm afraid to say you came here for nothing, only the expense of your life," he picks at his cuticles, then looks at me menacingly. "The Bureau tries to avoid capital punishment, but I can't have you surviving this."

I stifle a smirk. He thinks I'm going to steal the weapons that will reset the experiments, not deploy one of them. Of course he does.

Although I'm free of the death serum, mind is strewn, and I still feel the weight of the death serum, making my shoulders hang loose and my knees feel weak. I search the room for the device that will release the memory serum. I was there when Matthew described it to Caleb in _painstaking_ detail. A black box with a silver keypad, marked with a strip of blue tape with the model number on it. I spot in on the counter along the left wall, only a few feet away. But I can't get it now; I'll have to wait for the right moment.

"I know what you did," I say. I start to back away, hoping that the accusation will distract him. "I know _you_ designed the attack simulation, that you are the one who was responsible for my parents' deaths—my _mother's_ death. _You killed_ them. I know."

"I am not responsible for her death!" David says spontaneously. "I told her what was going to happen. I gave her the chance to get her loved ones to a safe house. She was foolish, and didn't know the difference between making sacrifices for the greater good and acting priggish, and _it_ killed her."

There was something about his reaction. It was too loud and too sudden, as if the question hit a sore spot in him.

"Did you love my mother? I ask. "All the time she was sending you correspondence… the fact that you forbade her from staying there… the reason you rejected her updates after she married my father… it's because you had feelings for her, didn't you?"

His breathing hitches and he doesn't move. He sits still, like a statue, as if the question will fade if he gives it enough time. That's all the answer I need.

"I _did_," he murmurs, as if it's a secret that is kept between only him and the spirit of my mother. "But that time is past."

I nod curtly. That's why he welcomed me into his circle of trust, why he gave me opportunity after another. Because I wear my mother's hair and speak with her voice. Because I am one of the only things left of my mother, while he's spent his life grasping her but coming up empty.

I hear footsteps out in the hallway. The soldiers, I presume. I need them to. I hope they wait until it's clear of the death serum.

"My mother wasn't a fool. She just understood something you can't. She knows what the true meaning of sacrifice is, and that's why she's not here right now," I don't feel like crying as I say it; don't feel my throat constricting, my lip wobbling. I am honoring her in my own way, making the choices she'd want me to. "My motives aren't clear to you. I didn't come to steal anything, David."

I lunge toward the device. I hear Caleb's voice as he repeats the code Matthew told us. I begin to press them into the keypad, and the gun goes off. Pain jolts through my body and spreads like a virus. I let out a cry as I get the numbers in.

"Tris," I hear Matthew's tremulous voice. "Tris!"

A gun goes off again, but I feel nothing. It's either that I I'm too numb, or the bullet wasn't for me.

_The green button, _I hear Caleb say. I slam my hand down on the green button, and slump to the floor.

From under my lashes, I see Matthew scrambling towards me, dropping the gun that was in his hand. _He shot David._

"Tris, can you hear me?" he asks. All I can manage is a soft moan. "You have to hold on, Tris. You have to hold on. The medics are coming. You'll be alright."

I look to David, and he is slumped in his chair.

And my mother walking out from behind him.

I know she's not truly alive—I'm probably hysterical from loss of blood or if the death serum has confounded my thoughts or if she is here in another way.

She kneels next to me, across from Matthew. She places her hand on my cheek, frigid from death.

"Hello, Beatrice," she says.

"Am I done yet?" I ask. I'm not sure if I actually say it though.

"No, my dear child. You have so much to live for," she says, her eyes bright with tears.

"Tris," Matthew says. "Tris, stay with me."

I suck in a breath, focusing more on my mother than him.

"You've done so well, but there's so much more to do," my mother says. I nod.

I don't hear the medics come in, or feel Tobias pick me up and race me to the hospital. Heck, I don't even know if it actually happens—I'm too far gone to notice.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: This part is mostly fluff, but the intensity is yet to come. I have a couple of things planned, but I need to do more with it. This is basically just a filler.**

**Chapter 2:**

**Tobias' POV:**

Idly, I graze my knuckles against her cheekbones, as I've done so many times before. Sometimes I don't even realize I do it. However, the gesture makes my hand tingle as if she's sending electricity through me from her limp, lifeless body.

"Don't worry," they tell me.

"They'll fix her," they say.

Three days.

Three days of grief, longing, false hope.

There have been no signs of life in Tris, other than the slow drumming of her heart, and the ever so spontaneous pulse in her wrists and neck. Nonetheless, I've visited her every day for the past three days, waiting for her to wake up.

One day her heart actually stopped. I had found flowers blooming around the compound and picked them. I wanted to liven up her room, as if to conceal the heavy feeling of death.

It's too bad I had to hear about Tris' condition from Cara. Her words were rushed and they merged together, so much that I had her repeat it. When I found out, though, the stockier doctors and nurses had to block the door, adding an extra thick layer between Tris and me.

It took long, but that hardly mattered considering how many times I almost lost her.

Now, she lies on the pale sheets of the hospital bed, her pallor almost allowing her to blend in. They were originally bloodstained, but were exchanged for fresher ones. Her golden locks from her head in a halo, only adding to her beauty.

As I caress the smooth skin of her lips, I feel a gust of air being blown onto my fingers and hear a hushed moan escape her lips, as if she was trying to cover it up.

I suck in a breath, moving my hand to hers, searching her face for a flutter of her eyes, a twitch in her lips. Instead, she lets out a small cry. Her hand goes out to the bullet wound in her stomach. She opens her eyes, and her expression softens when she sees me, though still contorted in pain.

A doctor rushes in, grabbing a couple of needles, and three vials. He fills one needle with a mix of the vials, and injects her with it.

"What's that?" I ask.

"Pain medicine," he says indifferently.

"You didn't give any to her before?" I say, a little too loudly.

"No. Frankly, we weren't sure she'd wake up," he says, turning to me, but I don't respond. "Tris, I'm Dr. Drake. Do you remember what happened to you?"

Her expression is slack―probably from the medicine—but it doesn't take long for her to answer.

"Was I shot?" she almost whispers, probably not wanting to speak above that level. Dr. Drake nods.

"Yes, you were. You may feel a little dizzy, but you are, overall, healed," she gives me a small smile. "Are you able to get up?"

"I don't know. I'll try," she says. I grip her arm as she rises from the bed. The pain medicine appears to be working, because she seems fine.

"Good," the doctor claps his hands together, a wide small plastered on his face. "If you feel lightheaded or anything starts to hurt―as in the bullet wounds―you take this," he reaches into his pocket and hands me a bottle of pills. "They are only mere side-effects. They'll most likely go away in two weeks. If you feel fine, you are free to leave."

The doctor leaves, shutting the door behind him. Christina brought clothes for Tris yesterday, so certain that she was going to wake. A part of me believed her, another part―the more guarded one―thought it impossible. But that's Tris, tough as nails.

Despite that, I open my arms so that she can fit herself in them. I breathe in the scent of her hair as I hold her. I have so much to say, but I bite it back. The moment seems light and intimate. There is no need to taint it with gnarled indictments and twisted memories.

"I love you, Tobias," she murmurs into my chest.

"I love you, too," I whisper, releasing her. "Christina brought you some clothes."

She looks at the neatly stacked pile of clothes, maybe a little too long. She's probably thinking about the fact that Christina knew she would wake up. I kiss the top of her head, leaving the room so she can change.

A few minutes later, she walks out, slipping her hand into mine as we leave the hospital.

"Where to?" I ask.

"I… I want to go to the dormitory. I left my mother's journal," she says. I nod. "Are we still going to live in the Dauntless compound?"

I lift a shoulder, contemplating. There's nowhere else to go for now.

"Yeah," I say. She smiles.

"I like your apartment," she says.

"_Our_ apartment," I correct her. She laughs lightly.

"I _love_ our apartment," she murmurs.

**A/N: Hello! I hope you liked the chapter, I did. Thanks to Epic Ninja Of Epicness for requesting this story, I love it already. **

**Of topic: I need you guys to review! I love them to pieces! 10 reviews, and I will update again. By the way, I need some ideas for my other stories. Review them if you have any, because I'm stumped. Anyways, this contest is going on too long, so my name is Alesandra. Ales for short. Don't forget to review! The box is very lonely down there!**

** -Alesandra**


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